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6.24.2009

I highly recommend this book

Right now I'm reading a few books, one of which is a language book that was sent to me (which I haven't finished yet), but I just finished an excellent book about the rise and fall of the company that produced Veggie Tales, and the creator's personal journey as he discovered that he was in over his head and ended up failing--his company went into bankruptcy and he had to sell the whole thing off to pay off a lawsuit. Just a total nightmare, but he admits that he was to blame for the company's demise.

But in the larger picture, he's not a failure, because he was able to create another company and continue making a living from being creative. But it's really a good lesson on a lot of levels about what it's like to go for something so big, you either can't handle it or your ego gets in the way, or both.

You can read an excerpt at his site, which seems to me like it was originally a blog post that became a book. But the post is long enough to get a pretty good idea of what happened to his company.

I also liked the book because it was well-written and conversational. Honestly, I don't like books that seem self conscious or too rigid. But this one flowed and the information, advice, and insight were worth it.

btw--I only saw one episode of Veggie Tales, and that's only because I was reading this book.